Vacuum plasma processing chambers are employed for processing workpieces, typically glass, semiconductor or metal substrates, so the workpiece is etched and/or has materials deposited thereon. Significant amounts of r.f. power must be supplied to the vacuum plasma processing chamber to excite ions in a gas in the chamber to a plasma and to maintain the plasma in a discharge state. The impedance of a load of the vacuum plasma processing chamber, including the plasma discharge and an excitation circuit component for it, usually a coil or one or more electrodes, varies non-linearly and unpredictably. For example, the quality factor (Q) of an excitation coil prior to ignition of the plasma is typically quite high, about 100-400. After ignition, the Q of the coil and its plasma load drops to about 10-20. Properties of the plasma also cause the reactive impedance seen looking into the matching network to decrease as a power matched condition is approached and reached. The resistive impedance results, to a large extent, from the charged carriers in the plasma. Hence, matching to a plasma presents particular problems due to these variations in the resistive (real) and reactive (imaginary) impedance components of the load seen looking into the matching network driving the excitation circuit element and plasma of a vacuum plasma processing chamber.
The matching network is intended to (1) maximize power supplied to the load, for efficiency, and (2) minimize power reflected from the load to a relatively high power r.f. excitation source, for efficiency and prevention of possible source damage. The matching network is connected between the excitation circuit components and an output terminal of a relatively long cable (e.g., greater than 10 feet) driven by the source. The source has a specified output impedance, such as 50 ohms resistive, and zero ohms reactive. The source output impedance equals the cable characteristic impedance. The matching network is supposed to match the impedance of the load to that of the source by adjusting the impedance seen by the source so it equals the source resistive impedance.
Typically, the matching network includes two variable reactances, one for primarily controlling the resistive impedance component (.vertline.Z.vertline.) seen looking into the matching network and a second for primarily controlling the reactive impedance component (.phi.) seen looking into the matching network. In one prior art arrangement, the variable reactances are automatically simultaneously adjusted in an attempt to minimize reflected power. The most commonly used technique for controlling the values of the variable reactances involves detecting the phase and magnitude of the impedance seen looking into the input terminals of the matching network. The automatic simultaneous adjustment according to the prior art, however, is imprecise and relatively slow to achieve a matched condition, for the reasons discussed below.
In general, the control surfaces of (.vertline.Z.vertline.) and .phi. in the space of the match network variables are complicated such that there is not a one-to-one correspondence between (.vertline.Z.vertline.) and .phi. and the two match variables. In other words, changing one of the match network variables so that, for example, (.vertline.Z.vertline.) is made to equal 50 ohms, will also have an effect on the value of .phi.. The same holds true when changing a match network variable to make .phi. equal to 0.degree., since there is not a one-to-one correspondence between (.vertline.Z.vertline.) and .phi. and the two match variables. Hence, attempting to adjust both match variables simultaneously in the prior art was difficult, since a change in one match variable would have an effect on the other match variable. This lack of correspondence leads to slowness in matching and a failure to match due to ambiguities in the surface shapes of (.vertline.Z.vertline.) and .phi..